Score: 6

"That's it!"

submission: Ranma½ Interactive Dojo 6

date: May 30, 2003

Every time a new Ranma Int. Dojo is submitted, there's always SOME reviewer who judges the sound and says that dubbed anime sucks. Who cares? It doesn't matter if dubbed anime sucks or not because this movie ISN'T DUBBED. It's got original voices. You're listening to the original voice recordings! If you want it subtitled, the artist would have to learn Japanese, record their voices in Japanese, and put in subtitles. How stupid are you reviewers?

Okay, sorry, I know that wasn't reviewing this particular movie, but it had to be said. Anyway, the movie is of the usual fair, not great, but still better than a lot of stuff on NG. It was odder than the first 5 though, since you totally turned the story upside-down. So, no more Ranma Int. Dojos?

You really should work on your line work. It looks like the characters, but the lines are just too squiggly. The fact that you don't straighten them some shows laziness, and while that may be true, it reflects badly on the movie. Some of your voices are very good and others are just bad (especially female voices). Get someone, even your sister or female cousin, or neighbor to do the female voices. Just b/c [regular] Akane has a deep female voice, why would you deepen your own voice when you record it? You should raise your voice.

The non-Ranma cameos (I won't give them away) were pretty lame, took away from the Ranma feel, and made the movie feel like just another NG movie where people take pictures, slap together and call it a movie. Don't do that in your Ranma stuff.

By the way, El Hazard dubbed is way better than El Hazard subtitled.

Score: 5

"Good."

submission: Astro

date: May 29, 2003

After 2000 points though, it's just tedium. It'sn o longer a test of skill, but a test of how much boredom you can stand.

Add increasing difficulty. Maybe aliens that shoot, or just other obstacles.

Your art needs work. The black hole is convincing enough, since you explicitly tel us what that id, but with just 2 parallax swirls you could make a kick ass black hole. Also, the ship should explode or melt, or something when the game is over.

I understand you may be wanting to keep this simple, but I don't think tedium is one of your objectives, so increase the difficulty progressively, if anything.

Add sound.

Good programming overall. Most people don't know how to do gravity, and it's so easy to do. Good job. Maybe you can ad a high score thing to your website so we can see the best of all time, or at least, the players that could stand to sit there for 10 minutes straight weaving left and right.

Score: 3

"All right"

submission: Mall Mayham

date: May 23, 2003

First of all, Phoenix741 is the DUMB ASS if he thinks you can't shoot people. ou can, but they ahve to be in front of the gun. It's true that people have to be in front of a gun in order to get hit, but it is annoying that the view is so skinny (make the window wider or the characters smaller).

Add more sounds, different sounds for different guns.

The game is slow paced, try speeding it up some.

Perhaps the shotgun should blast the people back instead of just dying the usual way.

Do something about the background. It doesn't feel right to just have to walk back and forth (in slow motion). Maybe loop the scenery, or make it like a level in a game where there are multiple gun shops so you can just keep walking.

Keep working on it.

Score: 4

"Mech building is fun"

submission: Build-a-mecha

date: May 19, 2003

But at what point does he get to do my bidding?

(And yes, fix those buttons. I'm sure if you just set up a constant value for each of the buttons, you could easily change them everytime you add another body part. Then you wouldn't have to put in a real constant like 15. Replace that 15 with something like MAX_HEADS and you're in business. Email me if you are totally confused.)

Score: 7

"Funtastic"

submission: Megaman Next - The Game

date: May 18, 2003

Or is it? Definitely a worthy tribute to the beloved little Megaman.

Graphics: The graphics are okay, considering it would have been pretty simple for you to make the "next" graphic 8-bit, but you didn't. Good job with the rest of the pixels though.

Sound: It's got music, sound effects, all in good quality. Nothing bad here.

Gameplay: This is the worse part of the game. Now that doesn't mean it was bad, by any means, but it wasn't on par with graphics or sound. It's not the difficulty either. The game is hard, but that's fine. It's just that the gameplay didn't really feel like Megaman. Enemies in Megaman never came at you at blazing speed. There was no rapid-fire (though I doubt many would complain about this). Those helmet guys were one hit kills. I could go on. I understand this is made to be similar, but different (i.e. harder), but it just doesn't flow well. Megaman is all hyperactive, he slides for as long as you hold the down arrow, charging the Buster is a different key than shoot... and many other little complaints.

I only found one bug so far and that's when a bullet got stuck on Megaman and no matter where I went, it was attached to me and I soon died. This happened at the begining of Punchma's level.

I might suggest teaming up with Andrew, who did Rockman Neo. With his graphics and your love of Megaman and coding skills, you could realy make a cool Megaman game. Of course, you'd still have to improve the gameplay.

Quick suggestions (email me for more elaboration): make charge/fire same button, like
in real Megaman. Enemies should never be in the same "space" as Megaman (x,y coords). Sliding should go a set amount and that's it. Slow down the game's pace about 15%. Some enemies should be one-hit kills. Configurable keys. Streamline all your graphics to the same style. Get someone else to draw your cut scene drawings because the art is just sad. Don't make it a guess where to go next ("will I fall to my doom, who knows!"). Make a charging sound.

I can see you put tons of work into this, but a game is made for fun and this game isonly kinda fun. I commend you on the programming and this ambitious effort.

Score: 7

"Something bothers me"

submission: Crow Clock Shorts #03

date: May 17, 2003

That was quite humorous. I find your animating skills of high quality, your humor a trying effort, and cinematics well approached. There's only one thing that really bothers me about this movie: Why did you get some 12 year old boy to be the announcer? Your score reflects it.

Score: 1

"Game?"

submission: Altered Beast (old crap)

date: May 15, 2003

This isn't a game! If you don't click on any enemies, they just wait around for a while, pretending like they are getting hit, then they die, as if you had clicked on them.

Your Level Buttons don't work. I have to right click and choose play for the level to start.

Terrible. You can't call this a game unless the player's input actually matters. It's just a movie and a bad one at that.

Score: 3

"Good start"

submission: Alien Massacre VII

date: May 15, 2003

Now tweak it a lot and you'll have something good on your hands. This may barely be saved from being blammed. I gave it a 2.

Some things to improve:
- Start with a few enemies, then increase the number to make it harder.
- Add more than one life for the player.
- I never made it to the end, but if there's no end to the level, you should add one.
- Every level you beat should give you a new weapon/bomb.
- In level weapons upgrades would be cool.

I'm a game programmer, so I know this is possible, and not hard to do. I hope to see you back with a better game in the future!

Score: 7

"Very Ranma like"

submission: Ranma½ Interactive Dojo 4

date: May 14, 2003

Do you trace Ranma video captures? It's just that sometimes your art is dead on (aside from the squiggliness) and sometimes it's all squished looking.

If you'd clean up the art, added more frames of animation to smooth it out, and change Akane's voice. It's kinda funny, but mostly just annoying. The other voices are great. Happosai is dead on and I might even swear that you just ripped that off the anime, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Anyway, the reason why the sound starts playing when you have stop() on the frame before is because of a stupid Flash quirk. Actionscript doesn't actually take effect until the frame AFTER it is called. This is the same reason why you cannot load a movie clip and alter its properties in the same frame. You have to wait one frame.

Solution: Try telling the movie to stop one frame earlier, or start the sound one frame later. I'd go with the latter option.

Keep up the great work!

Score: 4

"Ask yourself one question"

submission: Gunslinger

date: May 11, 2003

Do you have fun when you play this game? Do you see any flaws in it that you could fix? If so, you should fix them.

When you press reload and hold it, it shouldn't keep ducking in and out. The shooters shouldn't just randomly shoot at you, they should pop up, wait, then shoot. I'm not asking for it to be easier, just practical. This is a game, not a simulation. Just look at real shooters like Virtua Cop, Time Crisis, etc. The enemy pops up, aims, then shoots. It gives you some reaction time.

Good job on sound. Music, fx, all worked together.

I see you put some time into the graphics. Very nice. Enemies could use more animation. I like how the quality changes to speed up the game. However, graphics don't make the game.

This game wasn't fun, only frustrating. Sure, I beat it, but it was only because I try to give a good review by playing the game many times to really get the feel of it (in this case, the feel was very bad).